They have to, and it's their own fault.

They're suffering because of their relatively crap TV deal. Well, that's what happens when you make it a closed shop. Atletico have been caught 'trying to keep up with the Joneses'.

No sympathy for any of them, but let's not pretend that English clubs are immune to bending the rules.

Nah, I'm sure the english clubs are doing all they can to get the best kids from around the world as early as possible, that's why I'm surprised that they and others have managed to do so without seemingly breaking the rules while,tej spaniards haven't worked out how to...admittedly I don't follow this side of things too closely.

It's no worse than certain clubs hoovering up loads of young players in case they are a future superstar. I believe City were trying to poach some of our youth players. I think Rashford was one of them.

Chelsea's 38 players on loan doesn't sit well with me.

Or city sending Mangala on co on loan and paying the wages or the majority of it. We did that with Nani a few seasons back.

Lots of things going under the radar imo that should be addressed.

Chelsea did get a ban, later overturned, for their behaviour when signing a foreign youngster a few years back.

United were also investigated around the same time when we originally signed Pogba, but were cleared of doing anything illegal.

Yeah but taking a kid from London to manchester and then dumping him or sticking him on a train back home if he's not good enough is not as bad as moving the guy from his home in another country and then dumping him if he isn't up to scratch, which the article I read seem to imply that they do.

As for the The loan thing shows that clubs have too much cash that they can afford to splash out wages on someone who has a minimal chance of working for them.

Yeah I remember the Pogba incident.

I wonder if Madrid will do what Barca did? Does the ban start now or do they have some time to appeal?

Yeah that's a bit shit tbh.The loan system needs sorting out though it's ridiculous.

Agreed...the first paragraph didn't make sense, but shit is a bit harsh! (Edited now)

This was the appeal.

Oh dear, well they didn't go all out in the summer transfer wise just in case did they?

They were very quiet. I was expecting them to come in with a last ditch offer for Pogba tbh.

The loaning of thirty plus players by Chelsea (and at one time I believe Parma had over a hundred out on loan!) is just pushing things far to far.

It was interesting to read about Lucas Piazon, and how he is getting fed up of just being farmed out to club after club after club on loan, and would just prefer to find a club to sign for on a more permanent basis.

Was it Watford who had loads of players on loan a few years back?

Yeah, their owner also owns or is involved with two other clubs Udinese and a Spanish team, (I think Granada where Pieriera has gone), so they tend to just move players from one of those clubs to another, something else that is not exactly "best practice" I would say.

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By the sounds of it, Zidane is fairly happy with their squad and managed to get Perez to resist the urge to just go out and spend big money for the sake of it.

Definitely no more worries about fax machines and De Gea for a while then!

So it seems that Miki could be on the bench, it would be great to see him come on and play some part in the match tomorrow.

José as we have no injuries which is always great to hear, so he has a all of his options open to him.

He brought up the possibility of City playing with a false 9 or Sterling up front instead of Iheanacho. Really wouldn't be surprised if they did, reckon Sterling up front is the most likely.

I don't think that it would make a huge difference, but I'd be more happy with Sterling playing up top. He's in good form, but isn't as much of a natural finisher.

Guess it depends how the game goes. If it's a tight affair then I'd prefer Sterling, if it is a more open game with quick counter-attacks from both sides then I'd hate to have Sterling running in behind. Probably more likely to be the former with Mourinho admittedly.

Sterling is very much a hit or miss player, if they push him up front then I will be delighted to see that, as he is in now a good finisher, I would be much more worried if they played Iheanacho.

Agreed.

I honestly can't see Mourinho going for an open, attacking performance. Playing a high defensive line would be lunacy, especially with Blind's lack of pace.

I can see us sitting deep, centrally, with one or two central midfield 'shields', allowing the full-backs to provide the main attacking threat.

Valencia hopefully will be okay to start as he has started the season on fire, and with Shaw also looking like he is back to his best, or somewhere near, we are looking dangerous in those positions.

José I think will set up to make sure that we win the battle in midfield, and from there look to make our height difference work to our advantage, so the wide players will be key.

The only thing that made me question what he'd go for was the comments about Mkhitaryan not necessarily being available for a full 90 minutes. Means Mata is likely to start and I'm not really sure about him in a counter-attacking team.

I'll be interested to see what Rooney does in this one. Guessing he'll be asked to play deeper than he has been playing this season despite what Mourinho has said about him before.

I think we kind of pick ourselves at the moment if everyone is fit, as even if Miki was ready to start, Mata hasn't really done all that much wrong so far.

It is City who will be chopping and changing the most from their previous league match, as they could be starting a fair few players like Bravo and Sane who have no matches under their belt this season at City so far.